She was known as the The Lady,
poised, calm, serene, fresh flowers
in her sleek black hair each day
from her garden at her home
where she was under house arrest.
How easy it is to win a peace prize,
making statements from a house, alone,
under lock and key. An icon,
she would put her hand over the gate
so it could be touched by admirers.
Fame as an isolated woman, widowed.
was worldwide. Her remarks made news.
‘We are all equal’ ‘We only fear
our differences’. But now those
words forgotten, speaks new ones of hate
She yearned to rule Mayanmar.
Be its leader, bring democracy.
Ambition burnt her to be a puppet
leader, in a puppet democracy. The
army still rules supreme. Not she.
‘We are all equal’ has no more meaning
in Mayanmar. There are a people
whose name she will not say. ‘Those
people’ are denied existence. ‘Not here’.
They die every day in Mayanmar
from starvation, beatings, torture, rape.
Sold into marriage, made to labor,
stateless, different, isolated, like The Lady.
She is a player now, corrupted. It serves
her purpose that they are not named.
My heart weeps for them, but my mind
rages with passion. I tweet to get them
noticed, to shame her. When pressed
she says ‘those people’. Mayanmar,
say their name! They are Rohingya.
The first people to settle in Mayanmar
Their history lost in ages, long
before others came. Coins found
from millennia past. I tell of their
genocide, Rohingya killed by The Lady
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